


Golden Hour

by feyrelay



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, High School Student Peter Parker, M/M, Moodboards, No Smut, Pastiche, Short & Sweet, Tony Stark Bingo 2020, Twilight Parody
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:01:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22610662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feyrelay/pseuds/feyrelay
Summary: I think this is loads funnier if you don't know going in what it's a pastiche of. Nearly anyone born between 1985 and 2000 (or their moms) will recognize it. Also, don't mind the slight Darcy-bash, it's one line and unsubstantiated.CNTW = Peter is seventeen but nothing happens.(Tony Stark Bingo 2020 Fill; Card #3071Square: K2 - Peter Parker/Spider-Man)
Relationships: Peter Parker/Tony Stark
Comments: 24
Kudos: 85
Collections: Tony Stark Bingo 2020





	Golden Hour

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tangodoodles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tangodoodles/gifts).



Tony isn’t like the other members of the Avengers. He doesn’t _belong_.

Sure, Clint is deaf and Steve is literally in the wrong century. Thor’s on the wrong planet, and Natasha does the work she does to maintain her status as a political refugee, but Tony’s got it the worst. He’s misunderstood. No one _gets_ him.

I mean, Bruce kind of gets it. Bruce is smart, so he understands what a burden it is to have everything seem so easy by comparison, to feel so… not like everyone else. Or, at least, he _should…_ but when Tony asks Bruce about it, the other man just smiles tiredly and says, “It’s nice, having some things still be easy, every once in a while. I still get to be me, still get to do things other people find difficult. I’m privileged, in that regard. Mostly I’m just grateful for the downtime between ripping myself apart into the Other Guy.”

Tony frowns. Bruce doesn’t get it. _He’s_ normal. Tony is the weird one.

This becomes even more clear as they’re tasked to start doing their public outreach. It’s been conceived of that the Avengers as a whole, and not just Steve, need to be doing more to influence America’s youth. The PSA videos aren’t enough, apparently, not that Tony was ever asked to be in any of them. Of course they’d only wanted Steve for that. Blond Steve. Tan Steve. Built Steve. (Sober Steve.)

Tony’s just… Tony. He’s handsome, sure, but he’s pale from always working in the lab, and his hair is brown, and he doesn’t have the build that even Bruce, even when he’s not going green, hides so well under his button-up shirts. Tony’s the oldest. The boring old billionaire inventor.

He’s no _Thor._ That’s what he keeps hearing amongst the giggling and snickering, the first day the Avengers spend in amongst the students of Midtown. Why they started in Queens for their Schools Across America tour, he doesn’t know. He’d been sure Steve would lobby for Brooklyn, and Steve always gets his way. Tony had suggested Queens on a whim, thinking of Richard Feynman.

Like any of these kids, or even most of the team, even know who Richard Feynman was.

Tony sighs, picking at a chip in the edge of the cafeteria table they’ve taken over. Kids are staring at their table but most are too afraid to approach them, even though the cafeteria seems to be a moderately sociable place. The divisions that were present the last time Tony was in school seem to have degraded significantly. Most of the lunch tables have kids coming and going. The most popular clique, it seems, is the clique of the chameleonic social floater. _Interesting._

There’s one table no one is floating over to, though. 

"Who's that?" Tony asks, and Natasha sucks in a breath.

“Oh, God. Tony, no,” she tells him, which just goes to show how different Tony really is, because he hears ‘no’ and thinks ‘yes, please, more information needed’. “Didn’t you read the files?” she hisses at him.

“There are at least five kids over there, duh,” Tony tells her, uncomfortable. He doesn’t know why they always expect him to read up about everything, whenever he has to start over consulting on a new mission. It’s stressful enough, embarrassing enough.

It reminds him of his dad, to be honest. Make your own engine before you turn ten _one time_ and suddenly it’s like pulling teeth to get him to buy a pre-scrapped motor out of something, just to make a build go quicker. Similarly, become an expert on thermonuclear astrophysics overnight _one time_ and suddenly you’re supposed to read everyone’s files too.

This is what Tony means when he says no one gets him. He'll always be the weird, smart guy. Like that means he's not allowed a simple human, dumbfuck moment every once in a while, too.

“Those are the Decathlon kids, Tony,” Steve informs him. “They’re weirdly smart, and like… they’re not actually all friends, like they seem to fight a lot? Especially in the classes I’ve seen them in.”

“But they also seem a bit like a little family,” Bruce puts in. “Or maybe they’re all dating? I don’t know, it seems weirdly incestuous. Especially the weird girl who always wears red and her… brother? Boyfriend? I’m not sure, I just know the file said he’s on the track team and he’s undefeated so far.”

“Did _everyone_ read the whole school’s files except me?” Tony questions. _Great, another thing to set me apart._

“Well, part of this tour is about scoping out potential new talent,” Bruce says, not unkindly. “These kids were flagged after it was noticed they all have exceptional talents, and all tend to group together and pair off. All except that one, the skinny kid. Peter Parker.”

Tony glances over at the file Banner has open on the table, then back at the group of Decathlon kids, searching out the kid with the bronzed-brunet waves and big, brown eyes.

Unfortunately for Tony, Peter Parker is already staring right at him, as though he heard clear across the din of the cafeteria that they were talking about him.

Tony stops breathing.

***

A week later, Frost Giants come streaming out of the sky and this time they’re armed with EMPs. As soon as the threat is contained and he can get out of his Iron Man suit, which is thankfully still unhit and functioning, Tony is going to have to have a talk with whatever human told Loki about the weaknesses of ‘Midgardian’ technology… probably Darcy, the little idiot.

As if you’d catch Tony spilling secrets just because of what… love? He’s never been interested in all that.

Then Peter Parker darts in front of him, catches the flying pulse grenade with some kind of string that’s light enough to not set it off but strong enough to alter its trajectory… and _thwips_ it out of Tony’s way. The pulse inevitably does go off, but he’s out of its range. He uses the suit to take down the Frost Giant who threw it, lightning-fast, but when he turns back to try and escort the poor kid out of the line of fire, Parker is already gone, down the hallway. He’s helping someone else, cool as a cucumber, organizing his classmates out of the way of the Avengers and carrying a freshman girl with a leg that looks to be broken, likely from being caught in the initial crush.

Tony can relate to that. _Initial crush, indeed._

***

Things start to add up. All of the Decathlon kids are orphans, most of them having been originally born to scientist or military parents, employees of places like Oscorp or military testing outposts in backwaters like Sokovia. And they’re all weird. Some of them are weird like Steve or Bruce or Thor.

Peter, though. Yeah, he’s strong, but Tony can’t shake the feeling that… well.

He can’t shake the feeling that Peter is weird just like _him._

***

For one thing, Peter is the only one out of the little group taking AP Physics, which is the class Tony is called in to shill for most frequently. He catches the kid yawning through several lectures.

He also notices that while Peter is clearly highly intelligent, many of his answers aren’t… typical. They’re correct, of course they are, but Peter gives his solutions as if he’s _lived_ them, not like he has just an ironclad knowledge of the theory, not like some of the other overachievers in the class. Peter speaks about swinging objects and fulcrums and angle of aerial approach like it’s his day-to-day.

Tony wants to study _him,_ and he gets his chance when some kid is out sick the day of partnered labs. He darts over to the desk space next to Peter, and smiles blithely at the teacher, Mrs. Warren. Her husband is a supervillain anyway. She owes him one. “Iron Man to the rescue.”

Peter makes a _tch_ noise next to him, very quietly, and starts flipping violently through his lab notes like he’s offended that Tony thinks he needs the help. They’re supposed to be building some kind of Pythagoras switch design and then modeling it in miniature. This project will likely take the rest of the week.

Tony hopes that other kid is really, really sick.

***

In the library over lunch, hiding from yet another round of ‘Guess How Many Kids Asked to Measure My Biceps Today’, Tony sees him again. Peter is curled up between the stacks, near a cracked window. His hair is lightened to spun-bronze in the sunshine.

He’s abandoned his book, and is busy trying to coax a spider out the window with the cardboard taken from a package of Oreos. Peter’s not even touching the tiny arachnid, which Tony can barely make out from his vantage point. He’s just waving the cardboard gently back and forth, creating an uninviting wind to encourage the spider to go the other direction, out into freedom.

Tony is trying to not be _that_ older guy who wants to kiss a teenager, but he’s pretty sure Peter is older than you’d expect, if he’s in AP Physics, and furthermore that there’s something going on with him that means he’s dealing with things way beyond his maturity level, and maybe has been… for a while.

Tony wants to know what it is. It’s not like he has anything better to do in Queens.

***

He catches Peter watching a Spider-Man video on his phone when he’s supposed to be catching the formerly-sick kid up on the workings of the Pythagoras machine they’re building. But he’s not really _watching it_ , he’s moreso reading the comments and liking a bunch of them.

Tony looks closer.

 _No, he’s not liking them,_ Tony observes. _He’s pinning them. He owns the account._

Holy fuck.

***

It comes to a head in the last tiny bit of forest actually left in Forest Hills, some park or other. It’s been a long time since Tony’s been alone on a stealth-based mission, okay? The light is blue and it’s easy to shiver as the warmth is sucked from the world with the setting sun. It gets more and more difficult for Tony to follow Peter Parker home through the ‘shortcut’ he’s apparently taking. Tony doesn't know if this is normal or not; the kid usually takes his aunt's beat-up Volvo.

A twig snaps underfoot.

Somehow, the kid is behind him. “You have questions, I guess.”

“A few. That alright with you? Peter, right? I’m Tony.”

Peter snorts, because _duh,_ but he doesn’t say anything to stop Tony from continuing his line of questioning.

"Just how old are you, kid?"

A little chuckle. "Seventeen."

Tony considers this. Legal, but barely. Still gross that Tony kinda wants to see how long Peter can hold his breath. _Preferably by holding it with_ my _breath,_ he thinks. And yet... Tony already knows he is irrevocably dazzled by this incredibly strong, fast, truly _super_ bronze-haired... whatever he is. It hardly matters. Tony knows Peter is _something,_ something special. "How long have you been seventeen?"

"Long enough."

Tony takes a deep breath. Either Peter doesn’t know just how suspicious these one-word answers are—unlikely—or he doesn’t care. And if he doesn’t care, then it’s either because he trusts Tony and he doesn’t think he’s gonna tell anyone, or because he’s gonna _make sure_ that Tony doesn’t tell anyone.

 _Iron Man murdered in derelict Queens playground area: just what was he doing there?_ Tony can see the gossip rags gearing up to print now.

 _Tailing a high school kid, of course,_ he adds internally, because sure. That helps.

“Are you having a stroke, sir?” Peter asks him idly, after the prolonged silence. Tony finally deigns to turn around.

“Sir, is it? I was under the impression you didn’t think much of me, to be honest. Where’s all this newfound respect coming from?”

Peter appears to look him over. He’s taller than Tony expected him to be, up close. They’re mostly of a height. “Somehow, and I dunno how… but somehow you know what I am. And you haven’t called down the powers that be to stick me in a lab, yet.”

“Yet.”

Peter nods. His eyes are bright, watchful. “Are you going to? Tell them, I mean.”

“What’s there to tell, precisely?” Tony inquires, pitching his voice soft. It’s gotten rapidly darker, and the streetlights will begin blinking on any minute now. He doesn’t want Peter to startle and run. Tony’d never catch him; he knows that now.

“You know. You just have to say it for it to suddenly be true. They’d figure out the rest with a DNA test,” Peter informs him, though it’s not really _news._

“Something to do with spiders?” Tony guesses, because curiosity really should have been the eighth deadly sin. “I’ve seen you on YouTube. The Spiderling. Spider-boy.”

“Spider- _Man_ ,” Peter corrects him, and Tony takes a step closer, thrilling to it. _Why? Who knows._

(Because _men,_ and not boys, can rightfully be _kissed._ )

Tony finally knows what it is he’s doing here.

**Author's Note:**

> Listen. Someone reminded me Twilight was a thing, like an actual fandom that people claimed back in the day, and I couldn't resist.


End file.
